Margaret_Cho

Margaret Cho was born December 5, 1968 and raised in San Francisco. "It was different than any other place on Earth," she says. "I grew up and went to grammar school on Haight Street during the '70s. There were old hippies, ex-druggies, burnouts from the '60s, drag queens, and Chinese people. To say it was a melting pot - that's the least of it. It was a really confusing, enlightening, wonderful time."

Margaret started performing stand-up at age 16 in a comedy club called The Rose & Thistle above a bookstore her parents ran. Soon after, she won a comedy contest where first prize was opening for Jerry Seinfeld. She moved to Los Angeles in the early '90s and lived in a house with several other young performers.

Still in her early twenties, Cho hit the college circuit, where she immediately became the most booked act in the market and garnered a nomination for Campus Comedian of The Year. Arsenio Hall introduced her to late night audiences, Bob Hope put her on a prime time special and, seemingly overnight, Margaret Cho became a national celebrity.

In 2005, Margaret took up bellydancing, and in the spring of 2006 started workshopping her own burlesque, comedy and bellydance variety show called The Sensuous Woman. This year, direct from performances in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Margaret is bringing the show to Chicago's Lakeshore Theater before a limited engagement off-broadway run at The Zipper Factory in New York. Ticket information and dates are available on her tour page. Created by and starring Margaret, The Sensuous Woman features an impressive line-up of the country's most-renowned burlesque performers, along with hilarious stand-up and sketch comedy from emerging and established artists. Says Cho, "There's a lot of gender swapping and gender play. It's the gayest show you could have with women stripping in it." Featured performers include Los Angeles bellydance and burlesque sensation Princess Farhana, emerging transgendered comic Ian Harvie, the ingenious burlesque performer Selene Luna, comic actor Liam Sullivan as internet rock-star Kelly, internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer Ryan Heffington, New York downtown favorite Miss Dirty Martini, and sketch comedians Diana Yanez and Kurt Hall of the Gay Mafia Comedy Troupe of West Hollywood.

In describing her inspiration for the show, Margaret says: "The Sensuous Woman" is an evening of comedy, dance and music celebrating women's bodies. I have suffered from eating disorders and a horrendously distorted body image for my entire life, and I think the biggest reason is a lack of images of real women's bodies. Where are they? We don't see them in movies, on TV, in magazines. Instead, we are force-fed a steady diet of unattainable ideals, a tyranny of slenderness and youth, goals we can't even aspire to, they are so far out of reach. When we see dancers who enjoy their bodies, who are sexy and having fun, it gives us permission to enjoy our bodies and to enjoy ourselves in the process. We are presented with a new ideal, not one that is about dieting ourselves down to a smaller size, but expanding our notion of what is beautiful and to allow ourselves to be included there too."